Eric Bakker here.
Thanks for coming back.
I'm the naturopath from New Zealand.
We're going to talk about low carb diets and longevity.
So there are a few things that really tweak people's attention when it comes to studies,
but longevity is a big one.
Participation, especially longterm participation, is important.
A lot of studies you'll read only went for four weeks or six weeks, involving groups,
cohorts, of maybe a hundred or a couple of hundred people.
What we're going to show you now is a 25-year study published in The Lancet Public Health,
brings into question the healthiness of restricting carbohydrates from the diet.
So what we've done is look for 25 years at the health of people restricting carbs, not
just five minutes like what's happening with keto today.
So all those carnivores and keto, especially hardcore keto people, need to sit back and
listen carefully to the video, all right, because this is, again, a 25-year study.
Sara Seidelmann, from The Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Boston, and colleagues, studied 15,400 Americans over 25 years to better understand how their
dietary choices affected their mortality rates.
They found that people that consumed a moderate level of carbs, 50%, at age 50 can expect
to add another 33 years to their life.
By contrast, the high carb eaters, so more than 70% of the diet being carbohydrates,
lived another 32 years.
But the low carb eaters, under 40%, added 29 years to their lives.
So you could see a four year difference there between the moderate and the low carb eating.
So if you are looking at a higher life expectancy, you're not going to get it on a low carb diet,
okay.
It's just not going to pan out that way and the research is showing that.
Many studies are showing that when you limit carbs, you create problems longterm with your
gut because you're going to change the biodiversity of the gut.
This isn't the only study, however, to confirm this data, okay.
As the researcher writes, "These findings reflect a U-shaped relationship between carb
intake and mortality and were corroborated by data from a North American, European and
Asian and multinational cohorts combined as part of a meta analysis."
So this is a large amount of research that's pooled together is showing that low carb diets
reduce life expectancy of people.
Unfortunately for carnivores, the type of protein and fat you're eating does matter.
The team found that excessive meat and dairy shorten lifespans.
They speculate this is due to the decreased amount of vegetable intake, there you go,
because what you're doing is you're reducing the biodiversity of the microbiome.
You're putting a lot more fat in there.
You're also putting more herbicides and pesticides, hormone preparations, antibiotics.
You don't usually inject antibiotics into cauliflower but you often inject them into
animals, so unless you're getting 100% free range, I'd be very careful.
But it also says it doesn't leave vegans off the hook either.
The team found that high carbohydrate intake of processed foods and staples like rice increase
the risk of mortality.
So, like Michael Pollan says, the well-known Michael Pollan, "Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants."
Okay.
Plant based diets have proven to extend the lifespan of many people.
If you look at the five Blue Zones, okay, you will see, for example, if you look at
Sardinia in Italy, you'll see that the carb intake, I think, is around 45 to 55%, and
they drink a lot of wine, okay?
They do a lot of things that all these crazy bloggers would think they'd die from, but
in fact, people in Sardinia, one in three live beyond 90.
So you've got to remember that it's all about lifestyle and diet and moderation.
It's all about balance.
So this whole thing about carbs, this article I'm reading says, makes the realm of nutrition
confusing.
The proliferation of food blogging sites dedicated to dieting and cleansing leaves the public
truly dazed, all right.
Many people are confused about carbs, but let's just take away all that confusion, and
there's no doubt in my mind that when you restrict carbs, you're going to restrict your
life down the track.
Think about the diversity of the gut.
Don't just think about big your butt is.
Think about how long your lifespan is going to be, too.
Thanks for tuning in.